THE ISLAND (1980)

Journalist Michael Caine travels to Miami to investigate the 600+ boats and 2,000+ people(!!!) that have gone missing in the last three years in the Bermuda Triangle.  For whatever reason (it had something to do with his ex-wife), he brings along his annoying 12-year-old son.  Ugh!  I hate this kid.  Anyway, the story drags along at a snails pace until finally at the 33-minute mark they run into some...wait for it...pirates!  What the hell?  That's right.  This group of like 50 or so pirates have been living undisturbed on a uncharted island for the last 300 years.  Well, "undisturbed" except for the thousands of people they've somehow managed to kill over the years.

Anyway, whatever, so there's bloodthirsty pirates on the island.  Caine and his annoying son are captured.  The annoying kid is brainwashed into thinking he's a annoying pirate and Caine is used as a sex slave of one of the women.  That idea is definitely promising, but unfortunately outside of two awesome scenes the rest of the film is pretty boring.  The first highlight scene is when the pirates attack a drug smuggling boat and they fight a martial arts dude.  The other highlight scene is when they attack a Coast Guard cutter.  (Fun fact: the Coast Guard cutter used in the film is the USCGC Dauntless which six years later was the first ship on site of the space shuttle Challenger disaster.)

Mild violence, mildly interesting (and ludicrous) story that wasn't executed properly, average acting, annoying pirate language, annoying kid who I hated, lackluster topless scene and a covered bottomless scene, open-ended story, a fake as hell looking head getting hit with a ax, nice scenery and a interesting cast of lesser-known actors who've been in a ton of movies.

Worth a watch for action-adventure fans, but it's nothing to get too excited over  A remake could be interesting.

SSSSSSS (1973)

THE SWARM (1978)

Twenty-two million bees versus seven Oscar winners.

Celebrity-filled disaster movies were a big deal in the 1970's and THE SWARM definitely fits the bill for having a star-studded cast, but that story...ugh!  Clocking in at a unforgivable 155 minutes(!!!), THE SWARM opens with a military unit (lead by Richard Widmark) investigating a possible attack on a missile base.  Inside they find all of the soldiers dead and a lone civilian (Michael Caine) walking around looking smug.  That's pretty suspicious, but the explanation is quite clear: killer bees.  Duh!  Fast-forward a little bit and the city of Houston is threatened by millions of killer bees that have already wiped out a ton of people on their destructive path across Texas (which for some reason looks a lot like California). The military's solution is to the burn the entire city down with flamethrowers.

THE SWARM was a box office bomb (budget: $21m, ticket sales: $10m) when it was first unleashed into theaters and I can see why.  The story is dumb as hell, the pace is murder, the special effects are lame as fook, the bee attack scenes are goofy, the direction by Irwin Allen is abysmal and worst of all: it's straight up depressing to see such legendary classic Hollywood actors lowering themselves to appear in this turkey.  This was Fred MacMurray's last film for Christ's sake!  From DOUBLE INDEMNITY and THE APARTMENT to THE SWARM.  Sad.  On the other hand, it was kinda cool to see Richard Widmark shooting a flamethrower while covered in bees.

I also passed the time by playing a connect the dots movie game with the cast.  For example: GONE WITH THE WIND (Olivia De Havilland) to TERRORVISION (Alejandro Rey).  BLAZING SADDLES (Slim Pickens) to GOLDMEMBER (Michael Caine).  MULHOLLAND DRIVE (Lee Grant) to DEADLY PREY (Cameron Mitchell).  TERRORVISION (Alejandro Rey) to DEADLY PREY (Cameron Mitchell) to SURF II (Morgan Paull)!!!!! Or how about DONNIE DARKO (Katherine Ross) to AIRPORT '77 (Lee Grant) which could then jump to Jimmy Stewart in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and HARVEY. That's interesting since both DONNIE DARKO and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE are about suicide/visions of a alternative world and both DONNIE DARKO and HARVEY feature a large imaginary rabbit character. Yes, I was bored while watching this movie.

Michael Caine yelling and butting heads with Richard Widmark nonstop, flamethrowers inside a building, plot holes left and right, incorrect geography, cheap looking sets, dated special effects, overacting, horrendous dialogue, a potted plant on the outside of a skyscraper, Olivia De Havilland scream-moaning, Michael Caine and Henry Fonda having a conversation while their faces are like four inches apart, passenger cars on a train falling off a mountain (near Houston!) and exploding (...what would explode on a normal train car?), nighttime switching to daytime in the same scene (ambulance wreck scene), doors opening twice, dead body breathing, people stung to death with no visible wounds and guy pressing in a code on a keypad but missing the buttons.

Worth a watch for fans of cheesy movies. You'll definitely get a few chuckles out of it.  As negative as the review sounded, I actually like this movie quite a bit.

Poster for THE TOWERING INFERNO.

I guess this actor couldn't see because he's pressing the area next to the actual buttons.

The sign on the store window says "Clarance" but in the end credits Fred MacMurray's character is listed as "Clarence".